You cannot have a successful business if you fail to inspire trust. People are very cautious when it comes to purchasing services and products online. They even feel threatened by giving away personal data (email address, phone numbers, company address, name). If you want visitors to become clients you have to show them you are running a serious business. Use the following techniques to build a trustworthy relationship with your potential clients:

Always display a clear privacy policy and disclaimer on your website, especially when you are collecting personal data. This is really important for those who don't like to submit their private details on online forms. That's why you should always offer flexible contact alternatives: a phone number, an email address, an online form, a fax number etc. Make communication easy.

Don't forget your customers. Keep in touch. This is where newsletters come in handy. Use them to remind your clients about your products and services. Write greeting cards (preferably personalized) for Christmas, New Year, Easter, Thanksgiving and so on.

Get references and testimonials from your previous clients to demonstrate your experience in the field and your reliability. Do not display fake testimonials and never use a client's name without his or her permission.

Instead of praising your services, use case studies. Once again: do not lie to your clients. An unverified story could seriously damage your reputation. Real case studies are the best approach.

Your visitors like to know there is a real person behind a business, so personalize your marketing. Don't exaggerate: people do business with people, but they care more about what benefits they can get from a service than about how many kids you have and how many times you were married.

Everything you give away for free has a good psychological impact on your visitors. People do have the tendency to trust companies that offer free advice, free software and so on.

If you are selling perishable products, do offer a warranty. You wouldn't want complaints from unhappy clients. That makes your business look bad.

Advertise your products with specialty articles. It's better to write articles instead of ads. Articles will be indexed in different directories and stay online longer than ads. Also, people do trust more what they read in articles than what they see in paid ads.

Exchange endorsements with your business partners. This will lead to a win-win situation: you promote their products in your newsletters and on your website and they promote yours. You can always make a special category on your website “recommended products” for this purpose.

Encourage your clients to refer your services and products to their friends, relatives and partners, eventually by offering a commission or prizes.

These marketing tactics are affordable, simple and lead to astonishing results. You should implement them before spending time and money on pay per click, fancy presentations or other advertising tools. There's no use in advertising what people will perceive as an unreliable business.